Enhancing market access to global nature data

Overview

This roadmap has been developed in response to growing market demands for nature-related data. The calls are driven by regulatory developments such as the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) and voluntary standards like those from the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB).

As nature-related risks increasingly impact financial markets and business decision-making, access to high-quality, timely and decision-useful data has become essential. The goal of the paper is to help empower corporates and financial institutions to understand their nature-related dependencies and impacts.

This roadmap builds on the TNFD’s prior work and outlines a process which takes an integrated view of the nature data value chain and brings a principles-based approach to the identification and scoping of priority future initiatives.

Areas for immediate action include pilot testing initiatives with market participants throughout 2025 to improve nature data quality, timeliness and accessibility and working with partners to deliver an open-access Nature Data Public Facility (NDPF) for market participants, which will connect to existing nature data sources and streamline access to decision-grade data.

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The data challenge

Access to timely, comprehensive, accessible and decision-useful, nature-related data for corporate decision makers and capital providers.

The accelerating loss of nature and biodiversity, compounded by the intensifying impacts of climate change, is eroding nature’s capacity to continue to provide this flow of ecosystem services at the quantity and quality needed by business. As nature’s resilience declines, the physical, transition and systemic risks to business and finance increase.

This underscores the urgent need for timely, comprehensive, accessible and decision-useful, nature-related data for corporate decision makers and capital providers. That data needs to illuminate the dependencies and impacts of business on nature as well as the corresponding risks and opportunities to organisations and those providing capital to them. 

Market participants have particular needs and concerns about the current state of nature-related data. These include concerns about the accessibility, quality, comparability, verifiability and assurability of the data they need for corporate reporting, target setting and transition planning.

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New demand signals

Mobilising investments that fund upgrades to nature data coverage and quality

Responding to this challenge will require moving with purpose, urgency and a collaborative spirit across the nature data value chain to mobilise transformational investments that fund upgrades to nature data coverage and quality that meet the specific and demanding needs of market participants at this critical inflection point.

A growing focus of investors on nature-related risk management, corporates and financial institutions are now actively looking to contribute to nature-positive outcomes and boost the resilience of their business by investing in the resilience of nature. Consequently, demand for decision-grade, nature-related data is set to grow exponentially in the coming years.

Three key driving forces are providing further impetus for exponential growth in demand from the private sector for nature-related data:

  1. Growing awareness and activism among investors and companies that they need to understand and actively manage nature risk in their capital portfolios and cashflows
  2. The evolution of international voluntary corporate reporting standards responding to this awareness
  3. The growth of mandatory corporate disclosure regulation covering nature-related issues at a jurisdiction level

  • Discussion paper

    This discussion paper outlines a roadmap to accessing high-quality decision-useful nature data. It is published in draft and open for consultation with the market and other interested stakeholders.

    Download

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A roadmap for further action

Three key areas of focus emerged for further market consultation, testing and feedback

  1. Further definition of and clarity around a set of composite data principles, drawing from existing scientific, open data and corporate reporting data standards and principles. These are proposed in section 4 – A principles-based approach.
  2. Specification of the nature data value chain enhancements and quality improvements that need to be prioritised and funded in the medium term. The approach to identifying these upstream data value chain projects is outlined in section 5 – Investing in upstream data collection and aggregation capabilities.
  3. Beta testing of an open access Nature Data Public Facility (NDPF) for market participants, as first proposed by the TNFD and its partner organisations in its scoping study published in August 2023. The proposed approach to developing and testing a beta version NDPF is outlined in section 6 – Improving downstream accessibility to decision-useful nature data.
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A. Principles-based approach

The next task of the initiative proposed in this roadmap is to finalise a composite set of data principles as the foundation for upgrading the quality, timeliness and assurability of nature-related data for market participants.

The proposed data principles:

  • Transparency and verifiability;
  • Accuracy and faithful representation;
  • Accessibility and usability;
  • Relevance;
  • Timeliness;
  • Reliability and completeness;
  • Comparability and consistency;
  • Interoperability;
  • Clarity and understandability; and
  • Privacy, ethics and protection.
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B. Enhancing nature data value chain

Through pilot testing of the coverage and quality of existing nature data sets and sources for each of these target metrics, the intention is to identify critical gaps and priority initiatives in need of future investment. These gaps and priorities might be by biome, geography or data set.

The pilot tests will also help to identify the consistency and comparability of key attributes of existing nature-related data that market participants would expect to see in the metadata made available to them, such as the timeliness/currency of the data, resolution and collection methodology.

With the benefits of working with data provider partners to generate specific, granular insights from pilot testing, the intention will be to describe and prioritise a set of priority nature data value chain enhancements to present to funders at the end of 2025.

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C. A Nature Data Public Facility

As first proposed in its scoping study published in August 2023, the TNFD and its partners believe there is a case for establishing a Nature Data Public Facility (NDPF) to provide open access to a baseload amount of nature data relevant to corporates and financial institutions for their corporate reporting, target setting and transition planning activities. Such a facility could:

  • Address cost and confidence barriers to further voluntary market adoption of the recommendations of the TNFD and use of the target setting methods recommended by SBTN;
  • Reduce compliance costs associated with regulatory requirements;
  • Support and accelerate future adoption of voluntary reporting standards; and
  • Enable, at minimal or no cost, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across geographies and value chains to assess their own dependencies and impacts or nature and meet new data requests from their downstream customers.

The immediate focus of the TNFD is to pilot test this proposed model for the NDPF using a demonstrator or beta version data facility. This will enable it to determine what is feasible with the stock of nature data available today from a range of data sets and sources and given the user interface/experience needs of market participants.

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